What's In A Name? - A John Sales short story

Forty years old and still stood on a door, you can come in, you can’t with those on - sorry, you’re too drunk, watch your mouth – or else. Christ, there’s blokes who started after me, and they’re inside, in the warm, with a right cushy number. Mind you, I’d rather be out here than an arse-licker.

Doorman, the new politically correct name - that just about sums it up. What happened to Bouncer? People respected Bouncers, but not Doormen. There was nothing wrong with being a Bouncer was there? Ian Parkes the Bouncer, not Ian Parkes the Doorman, doesn’t ring does it? Can’t even look at em the wrong way these days, so much as sneeze near em and it’s I’ll sue for this and I’ll sue for that. Then the coppers are round taking statements, them bloody jokers, we do their dirty work but do we get any thanks? Not on your life!

The wife says to pack it in, I’m getting too old she says, some young-un’ll give me a right hiding one day soon, she says. Thanks for the vote of confidence I tell her, only for your own good she shouts back. Only for my own good, what the fuck does she know?

My fourteen-year-old, the oldest, said the other day, what does a Doorman do exactly? Exactly fuck all, I said, I’m not a Doorman I’m a Bouncer. They only call us Doorman these days so the bastards can get a licence for their clubs. He then said, what’s a Bouncer do exactly then? Jesus, fourteen and doesn’t know what a Bouncer does. I didn’t tell him, what’s the point? Shit for brains, just like his Mother.

She’s ruined them kids you know, she makes em do their homework and go to school every day, she always wants to know where he’s going and who with, and makes him come home for nine at the latest. I mean, how’s he going to learn anything, he should be on the streets learning how to look after himself - the girl, fair enough - but not the boy for Christ’s sake. I mean, it didn’t do me any harm. Did it?
She keeps telling em they’re not going to end up like their father, cheeky cow. I’ll tell her the next time she says that I’m too old, I’ll say if your son’s anything to go by Mrs then I’ll be able to go on till I’m eighty - without a doubt. These young-un’s can’t knock the skin off a bloody rice pudding.

In a way, though, she’s right - twenty bloody years and still on a door, but what else can I do? I tried getting away from it a couple of years ago; you know, the last time I came out of the nick. Her brother got me a labouring job at his factory. I skived off for a quick fag - the foreman caught me and started shouting, so I thumped him. You’d have thought I’d committed murder to listen to her and that brother of her’s. Harry’s smoothed it over, she says, he’s not going to press charges, but don’t ask for a reference, you don’t deserve it you stupid bastard.

Stupid - me? You can’t let people, like that foreman, talk to you like that, can you? Let em get away with shouting at you as if you’re muck and they start taking even bigger liberties, don’t they? I’ve tried to tell her, but it’s a waste of time, she never listens, in her eyes it’s always me that’s at fault.

Charles Bronson, now there’s a hard nut, he doesn’t let anyone take liberties. Not the film star, the one in the nick who’s changed his name. Only got two years in the first place, but he keeps attacking the screws and getting extra time, done twenty years now - the hard bastard.

Got some bottle that bloke, won’t cow-tow to em you know - what a man. I’d love to meet him, perhaps if I ever do any bird again then I might get the chance, but I’ve heard that it’s not just the screws he attacks, so he’s always in solitary - but you never know your luck in a raffle?

Hold on - the hairs on her dickey-dido? I recognise that song, Jesus, here comes that bloody rugby lot. Every so often, they turn up pissed, and every time they do, we stop em going in, except for once that is. The whole team turned up and we got a bit of a pasting, but the gaffer phoned the coppers, and they sorted em out, if he’d just left it for a few more minutes? They were lucky the Bobbies came when they did.